Terence gazed glumly from the turret of Camelot’s highest tower. Before his eyes lay miles of tidy patchwork farms, bordered by hedgerows and forests, all tied together by ribbons of well-kept roads. Britain under King Arthur was a picture of tranquility, a picture that was belied by the tense, anxious emptiness that Terence had felt growing within for more than a month. He turned and picked his way down the tower’s winding stairs.
At ground level, Terence crossed a courtyard where young squires practiced swordplay with wooden cudgels. He nodded to them and returned several polite greetings: although he was older than the next oldest squire present by at least ten years, he was still one of them, in the service of King Arthur’s nephew Gawain.
He stopped once to offer advice to a young squire who was scrubbing at a spot of rust on a breastplate, then continued through the court to the chambers that he shared with Gawain. Gawain sat in an armchair by the fire, nursing a pot of ale.
“There you are, lad,” Gawain commented.
“Here I am.”
“Where’ve you been all day?”
“In the north woods, then on the high tower,” Terence replied. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded abrupt. “Sorry, milord,” he muttered.
“Still worried?” Gawain asked, turning to examine
Terence more closely.
“Ay,” Terence replied. “It’s been nearly six months now since I’ve had any contact with the OtherWorld.”
Gawain shrugged. “Is that so rare? Until I began traveling with you—fifteen, twenty years ago, or whatever it was—I never had contact with the Other World.”
“It’s rare for me. Since we met, I’ve never gone more than a week or two without some word from home.”
When Terence said home he always meant Avalon, the court of his father, Ganscotter, in theWorld of the Faeries. Terence had been raised as a foundling by a hermit until he had been taken on as squire many years before by the young Gawain. In the course of their adventures, Terence had discovered his faery heritage and, through many visits to the Other World since then, had come to realize that he lived in theWorld of Men as a visitor and a stranger.
Gawain nodded. Although he had only a trace of faery blood himself, he was as tied to Avalon in his own way as Terence was. In Avalon lived his wife, Lorie, who was Ganscotter’s daughter and Terence’s half sister. Both Terence and Gawain would have left the World of Men and returned to Avalon in a second if it were not for their loyalty to King Arthur. Ganscotter had told them that they still had a task to perform for their king, and so they remained—their lives and duty in one world, their hearts and hopes in another.
“What are you thinking?” askedGawain. “Have you noticed something peculiar?”
Terence sighed and sat in the other armchair by the fire. It was a breach of courtly etiquette for a squire to sit in the presence of his knight, but they had been through far too much for either to give a straw for such rules. “No, nothing. I don’t have one solid reason for feeling so uneasy. To all appearances, King Arthur’s reign is at its peak. Everything is peaceful and prosperous. It’s been more than a year since the last little revolt, and that was just poor, unhappy Count Anders being a silly ass. King Arthur’s made England what every land ought to be, and people come from everywhere to see how he did it and to bask in his glory.”
Gawain snorted and took a deep draught of ale. “I could do without that last bit,” he commented, wiping foam from his lips with the back of his hand. “It’s gotten so you can’t step outside your door without tripping over another batch of jabbering, overdressed foreign courtiers come to get that Camelot polish, as if Arthur were running some sort of finishing school for knights. And that reminds me, where’s this latest passel of fools from? The ones with the checkerboard trappings?”
A gruff voice came fromthe hallway behindTerence, through the still open door. “From the Holy Bleedin’ Roman Empire.” Neither Terence nor Gawain bothered to look.They both knew the voice of Sir Kai, King Arthur’s half brother and seneschal.
“Come in, Kai,” said Gawain. “Oh, you have. Have some . . . Never mind.” Kai was already at the sideboard, helping himself to a tankard of ale.
He joined them by the fire and continued his own rumbling monologue. “Though why they call themselves Roman makes no manner of sense to me. A passel of Germans.” He frowned. “Is that right? Is it a passel of Germans?”
Gawain looked thoughtful. “It isn’t a flock, I know. Or a gaggle. For that matter, what would you call a group of Britons?”
Kai snorted. “All I know is that I wouldn’t call them Roman.”
Gawain assumed the patient tone of someone instructing a very small child, or an idiot, and said, “Let me explain then, my dear Kai.The founder of this empire was a very important man named Charlemagne, who was a very good Christian except for the bit about killing thousands of people, and so the pope himself granted him the title of Emperor of Rome. So now Charlemagne’s successors are the spiritual descendants of the Roman Caesars.”
“If there was anything spiritual about the Caesars I’ve yet to hear it,” grunted Kai. “And anyway, it isn’t as if the old Roman empire is gone. It’s not what it once was, but it’s still around, moved to Constantinople. So now, because the pope’s a busybody without a lick of sense, we have two bleedin’ Roman empires, and if I have to pick one I’ll take the one that’s farthest off. At least they’re not sending us their wet-nosed brats to learn how to be knights.”
Terence rose from his chair and slipped away. Kai and Gawain would be talking politics for hours, and he had no desire to listen.Outside the door, he took a long breath, then slipped out the window at the end of the corridor and climbed up the outside of the castle wall to a window one level up. He was going where he nearly always went when he felt uneasy or incomplete. He swung through the openwindowinto a neat bedchamber where a red-haired woman sat reading. “Hello, love,” Terence said.
Lady Eileen carefully marked her place in her book, then looked up and met Terence’s smile. “Hello, Terence. I was hoping you’d come by today.”
“Oh?” Terence asked. “Did you have something to ask me?”
“No,” Eileen replied. “I hope that every day.” She rose and walked across the room to him, and they kissed. It had been more than fifteen years since Terence and Gawain had rescued Lady Eileen from the Chateau Wirral, and Terence still caught his breath when he looked into her wise, laughing eyes. She rested her hands onTerence’s shoulders, then stepped back to look at his face from arm’s length. “Now you tell me,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
Terence shrugged. “It’s the same thing. Still no contact from the OtherWorld. Not even a visit from Robin.” Robin was the name of a mischievous little sprite who had been Terence’s most frequent faery visitor.
“And it worries you,” Eileen said, nodding.
Terence nodded back. “Remember, when I was with my father six months ago, he told me there was a plot against Arthur and that I was to be on my guard. Since then, there’s been no contact at all.”
“You think this silence is a part of the plot?” Eileen asked. “That someone is keeping the two worlds apart on purpose? But who could do that?”
“Morgause,”Terence replied at once.Morgause was the most powerful, and most venomous, enchantress in Britain. She was also Gawain’s mother and King Arthur’s half sister, but that had no bearing on the implacable hatred that she bore for both. Terence and Gawain had opposed her plots against the king more than once.
“Remember a few years ago,” Terence said, “when Morgause kidnapped Queen Guinevere? She took the queen to a deserted land and cast a spell over it that kept all faeries from entering. Even I couldn’t go in, and I’m only half faery. Lancelot and Lady Sarah had to rescue the queen.What if Morgause has done something like that for all England?”
“I think you worry too much,” Eileen said at last. “I’m no expert, but I have a feeling that if Morgause had enough power to do that, she wouldn’t have to work by such roundabout means. She’d be able to just kill us all outright.”
Terence relaxed. Of course Eileen was right. “That’s why I keep coming to you.You have such good sense.”
Eileen rolled her eyes. “Why, how complimentary, my dear! I had thought that you came because you were fond of me, but I see now that it’s because I’m useful.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Terence replied, grinning. “But you show promise.”
Eileen drew a breath to reply, but before she could speak, there came a loud rap on her chamber door and a thin female voice with a rich accent called out, “Lady Eileen! Are you een?”
“Oh, blast!” Eileen muttered.
“Who is it?”
“A little chit named Fenice,” Eileen said in a low voice. “She’s with this latest group of tourists from the Holy Roman Empire. A silly, pampered girl with a head full of nonsense about romance that she’s picked up fromb...
